Little Girls(2)
“Thank you.” She withdrew her hand from his, thankful to be rid of the cold, bloodless grasp. “I was expecting Ms. Lorton.. . .”
“I’m Dora’s brother, Felix Lorton. Dora’s inside, straightening up the place for you and your family. She was uncomfortable returning here alone after . . . well, after what happened. My sister can be foolishly superstitious. I apologize if I’ve frightened you.”
“Not at all. Don’t be silly.” But he had frightened her, if just a little.
Across the front yard, Susan squealed with pleasure. Ted had lifted the corner of the plank of wood covering the well, and they were both peering down into it. Susan said something inaudible and Ted put back his head and laughed.
“My husband and daughter,” Laurie said. She recognized a curious hint of apology in her tone and was quickly embarrassed by it.
“Splendid,” Felix Lorton said with little emotion. Then he held out a brass key for her.
“I have my own.” David Cushing, her father’s lawyer, had mailed her a copy of the key along with the paperwork last week.
“The locks have been changed recently,” said Felix Lorton.
“Oh.” She extended her hand and opened it, allowing Lorton to drop the key onto her palm. She was silently thankful she didn’t have to touch the older man’s flesh again. It had been like touching the flesh of a corpse.
“Hi, there!” It was Ted, peering up at them through the slats in the porch railing while sliding his hands into the pockets of his linen trousers. There was the old heartiness in Ted’s voice now. It was something he affected when in the company of a stranger whom he’d had scarce little time to assess. Ted was two years past his fortieth birthday but could pass for nearly a full decade younger. His teeth were white and straight, his skin unblemished and healthy-looking, and his eyes were both youthful and soulful at the same time, a combination many would have deemed otherwise incompatible. He kept himself in good shape, running a few miles every morning before retiring to his home office for the bulk of the afternoon where he worked. He could work for hours upon end in that home office back in Hartford without becoming fidgety or agitated, classical music issuing from the Bose speakers his only companion. Laurie envied his discipline.
“That’s my husband, Ted,” Laurie said, “and our daughter, Susan.”
Susan sidled up beside her father, her sneakers crunching over loose gravel. Her big hearty smile was eerily similar to his. She had on a long-sleeved cotton jersey and lacrosse shorts. At ten, her legs were already slim and bronze, and she liked to run and play sports and had many friends back in Hartford. She was certainly her father’s daughter.
“Nice to meet you folks. I’m Felix Lorton.”
“There are frogs in the well,” Susan said excitedly.
Lorton smiled. It was like watching a cadaver come alive on an autopsy table, and the sight of that smile chilled Laurie’s bones. “I suppose there are,” Lorton said to Susan. He leaned over the railing to address the girl, his profile stark and angular and suggestive of some predatory bird peering down from a tree branch at some blissfully unaware prey. “Snakes, sometimes, too.”
Susan’s eyes widened. “Snakes?”
“Oh, yes. After a heavy rain, and if it’s not covered properly, that well fills up and it’s possible to see all sorts of critters moving about down there.”
“Neat!” Susan chirped. “Do they bite?”
“Only if you bite first.” Lorton chomped his teeth hollowly. Then he turned his cadaverous grin onto Laurie. “I suppose I should take you folks inside now and introduce you to Dora.”
“Yes, please,” Laurie said, and they followed Felix Lorton into the house.
She had grown up here, though the time spent within these shadowed rooms and narrow hallways seemed so long ago that it was now as foreign to her as some childhood nightmare, or perhaps a threaded segment of some other person’s life. Her parents had divorced when she was not much older than Susan, and she and her mother had left this house and Maryland altogether to live with her mother’s family in Norfolk, Virginia. Subsequent visits to the house were sporadic at best, dictated by the whim of a father who had been distant and cold even when they had lived beneath the same roof. Her mother had never accompanied her on those visits, and when they stopped altogether, Laurie felt a warm relief wash over her. In her adult life, Laurie had chosen to maintain her distance, and she had never returned to this unwelcoming, tomblike place. Why should she force a relationship on a father who clearly had no interest in one? Even now, despite the horrors that had allegedly befallen her father, Laurie felt little guilt about her prolonged absence from his life.
“This place could be a stunner if it was renovated properly,” Ted commented as Lorton led them through a grand entranceway. “I didn’t realize the house was so big.”
“Is it a mansion?” Susan asked no one in particular.
“No,” Ted answered, a wry grin on his face now, “but it’s close.”
The foyer itself was large and circular, from which various hallways speared off like spokes on a wheel. There was an immense crystal chandelier directly above the entranceway and a set of stairs against one wall leading to the second story. The floors were scuffed and dulled mahogany, with some noticeable gashes dug into the dark wood. Some of the floorboards creaked.